


Careful Watch

by Hectopascal



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: AU, Artist Rick, Awkward Men Are Awkward, Based on a Tumblr Post, M/M, Mechanic Daryl, Strangers to Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 13:36:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1268362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hectopascal/pseuds/Hectopascal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick is a painter. One day he meets a car repair man, whom he asks to repair his car. His name is Daryl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Careful Watch

**Author's Note:**

> Rick has an ill-hidden love for hideous sweaters. Shane is Rick’s BRO, okay? Daryl is his Bestie. Idk if Cars is a real magazine or not. Maybe? Idk if Jackson Square is a real place or not. Probably?
> 
> Based on this here tumblr post: http://nonormynolife.tumblr.com/post/69299898254/rickyl-au-rick-is-a-painter-one-day-he-meets-a

_-_ 1 _-_

At first Rick thought he was in the wrong place. It wouldn’t be the first time his shoddy sense of direction had lead him astray even with the relatively clear, supposedly idiot-proof step by step instructions he’d printed off Google Maps before he left the house. He glanced down at the crumpled piece of paper in his hand, skimming over the block of text to the destination address at the very bottom.

No. That was right. The tarnished plaque beside the door had read 6023 and the sign beside the lot he’d turned into had been very clear too, Jackson Sq. Rick was, according to Google Maps, supposed to be at 6023 Jackson Square, which he was. So, theoretically, he was where he _thought_ he should be, but—

Rick ducked a flying wrench—it hit the wall behind him, punched a messy hole in the plaster, and dropped to the off-gray tiled floor with a loud clatter—as someone hollered from further within the store, “About damn time, asshole, near ate it waiting for you! Get the fuck over here or I’m gonna fire you faster ‘n you can spit. And all my caps better be in motherfuckin’ _pristine_ condition, college boy!”

—somehow this wasn’t what he had pictured when his friend Theodore, who could do phenomenal things with watercolor and had never, to Rick’s knowledge, led him astray with professional recommendations, had told him this was the best car repair shop in the whole city.

He didn’t even know what he had been expecting, but it sure wasn’t this. His subconscious had waved vague images before his eyes whenever he thought about it—a row of car jacks, bright red tool boxes, and the pervading scent of engine grease and oil.

The smell was there at least, so overpowering it made Rick’s nose itch, but other than that the whole setup was rather…unimpressive.

Maybe he should’ve expected it when he drove into a strip mall, but he hadn’t formed any opinion, negative or positive, of the place until he’d walked in accompanied by a sinister tinkling of the bell above the door and nearly gotten his head taken off by a slab of heavy metal.

The beige walls were bare aside from the recently broken in dent—and several more dents around it now that Rick was looking closely, were hurled tools a common event here?—no pictures or paintings or advertisements for the garage’s services.

There were three uncomfortable looking folding chairs set up to his right and a low table in front of them, its surface marred by watermarks and scratches only partially obscured by a smattering of the bright covers of _Cars_ magazines.

To his left there was a steel water fountain and directly in front of him about ten feet back there was a desk, beyond which there was a darkened doorway that Rick assumed opened into the actual garage. It was also where the wrench had originated.

Rick gave said wrench a considering look.

He’d never actually been to a mechanic before—never needed one. His father had sworn up and down over the merits of preventative care and had made certain before Rick so much as glanced at a car that he knew his way around basic maintenance well enough to solve most vehicular problems on his own.

(His father was also consistently paranoid over being scammed out of his hard earned money. Rick didn’t have the same problem—he was fairly sure—but he did think that charging sixty dollars for an oil change was a little excessive.)

That had been all well and good until the sedan he’d faithfully driven for over a decade without a single hiccup had sputtered and died two days ago while the car had been idling, waiting for the light to change. After pushing it, with the help of two concerned citizens, into a nearby parking lot Rick had called for his buddy Shane for a tow job.

Shane was a decent police officer and the proud owner of the biggest truck Rick had ever laid eyes on (there was an immature dick joke in there somewhere and Rick had known Shane for long enough that he might have gone on ahead and said it anyway, but for the too-casual way Shane had leaned against the cab and swung his handcuffs around his index finger).

The truck was more than qualified for the job of getting both Rick and his car home in a timely fashion. Rick had paid Shane with a beer and a few hours of conversation.

Shane had commented on the newest painting Rick was working on (“It looks like a friggin’ dead fish. Keep at it, man.”), jibbed him about finally getting published in a magazine that only ‘artsy-fartsy’ people didn’t read, and claimed that Rick looked like a dusty old author in his picture.

It was his friend’s unique way of saying congratulations and being supportive. Probably. He might have just been being an ass; it was a bit hard to tell with him sometimes.

That aside, Rick had looked the engine over twice and couldn’t find anything wrong with it other than the fact that it wasn’t working, which meant that whatever problem it had was leagues outside of his mediocre expertise. He’d then, in succession, called around in search of a trustworthy car repairman and found a rental vehicle.

Theodore, whose request to be referred to as T-Dog was routinely ignored by everyone who knew him, had immediately pointed him to _Dixon’s Auto Repair_. He’d said the price was fair, the turnaround time was the best he’d ever seen, and his Toyota had run like a dream for a good two months after he got it back.

Then again, he might have just been screwing around. The longer Rick stared at the wrench, undamaged by its transition from projectile weapon to doorstop, its handle smeared with grease, the more likely the idea became—he didn’t sign up for a near-concussion, hell, he hadn’t signed up _at all_ yet. And he wasn’t going to either.

Rick had just made the decision to high tail it out of there before the owner of the wrench made an appearance, was turning on his heel to exit swiftly the way he came—he’d go back through the manual, again, and then find somewhere else that could fix his car, someplace that did not involve _flying wrenches_ for God’s sake, of all the insane things—when he heard the same voice that had been yelling a moment before, closer, louder.

“Christ, are you deaf now too? What am I even paying you for?”

Sprinting for the door was out of the question. Rick wouldn’t make it and he had more dignity than to flee in the face of a possibly unpleasant confrontation. He shuffled in place, squinted down at the abstract-patterned sweater he was wearing—eh, he owned worse—and then focused on the doorway behind the desk where a man had just stalked into view—his hair short and dusky blond, his mouth twisted in a scowl.

Rick took in the work clothes, a worn t-shirt and jeans combination, both dirty and frayed around the edges, then the hands, one of them holding a blackened rag. So, he thought, this was probably the mechanic then. Dixon. Unless that was the owner and this was someone else?

The mechanic froze in the process of wiping the back of his hand with the rag. He stared at Rick with a disturbingly blank expression while Rick fought the urge to look down at his chest again—it wasn’t really that bad, was it?—and then slowly, deliberately dropped the rag on the desk and walked out around it.

“Good morning,” Rick said and tried for a charming smile. Okay, that was polite, great start, now where to go from here? “Are you the man I should talk to about my car?”

“Um, yeah,” the mechanic blinked and scrubbed his palms on his jeans, “I’m Daryl. What’s wrong with it?”

“That’s the thing,” Rick laughed nervously, “I don’t really know. I was sort of hoping you could tell me.”

“Sure,” the mechanic, Daryl, nodded and his eyes shifted back towards the garage, “You got it with you?”

“No, it’s back home. It doesn’t exactly…drive anymore.”

Daryl nodded silently—should he take that as encouragement?—, his eyes still burning like lasers on Rick’s face. He had remembered to shave that morning, right? He was pretty sure he had.

“So, how much do you charge for a diagnostic?”

“Thirty bucks.” Daryl bit his lower lip and abruptly looked about three times less intimidating and much younger. “If you want me to fix it that gets waived, but the price depends on what needs to be done.”

“That,” was more than fair is what it was, but after a brief moment of suspicion Rick shrugged mentally and let it go, “sounds great. I can bring it by…?”

“Tomorrow. Whenever. Bring it round back.”

“All right.” There was a beat of silence. This wasn’t at all strange, Rick thought with a twang of humor. At least Daryl was coming off as uncomfortable as he was, Rick hadn’t had a conversation this stilted since his last awful showing at a gallery where everyone had been pretentious snobs.

Speaking of which, his absentee manners chose this moment to return.

“Oh, I never introduced myself, did I? Sorry, that was rude of me.” Rick held out his hand. “I’m Rick Grimes. Nice to meet you, Daryl.”


End file.
